D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Micah Sweet]

Well, Google - citing Oxford Languages - tells me that agency means an action or intervention producing a particular effect; a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.

Merriam-Webster tells me that it means a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.

In the context of a game, like a RPG, when we are talking about player agency, the person who acts would be a player, and the result produced or end achieved would be a change to what everyone is imagining together.

If all the interesting and important changes are established by one participant, then as I say the other participants have little agency in respect of the game. That is not a redefinition: it is an application of standard meanings of the term in this particular context.

If the impact of what the player decides that their PC says and does is decided primarily by the GM, then this does not seem to me to be a very significant exercise of agency by the player. They are prompting the GM to produce an effect or result; but they are not producing it directly via their own agency.

I thought you said the games you play don't involve players altering reality. Now it seems you're saying anything less than that isn't agency.

Please explain.

 

[Oofta]

Well, Google - citing Oxford Languages - tells me that agency means an action or intervention producing a particular effect; a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result.

Merriam-Webster tells me that it means a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved.

In the context of a game, like a RPG, when we are talking about player agency, the person who acts would be a player, and the result produced or end achieved would be a change to what everyone is imagining together.

If all the interesting and important changes are established by one participant, then as I say the other participants have little agency in respect of the game. That is not a redefinition: it is an application of standard meanings of the term in this particular context.

In my games the PCs have had dramatic impact on the world around them.

If the impact of what the player decides that their PC says and does is decided primarily by the GM, then this does not seem to me to be a very significant exercise of agency by the player. They are prompting the GM to produce an effect or result; but they are not producing it directly via their own agency.

A DM can always negate what the players say and do. No matter what the player says, it doesn't really make a difference, it has no impact. Or the DM can be a neutral referee for the reactions to the PCs actions in which case the players have as much agency as a person in the real world.

Your very definition of agency - that what the PC does has an impact or effect - is in no way automatically negated just because the DM has agency over the NPCs in the world.

 

[pemerton]

I thought you said the games you play don't involve players altering reality. Now it seems you're saying anything less than that isn't agency.

Please explain.

And in order to pre-empt, or at least attempt to pre-empt, confused or incorrect statements about how (say) Dungeon World works: in the RPGs I know that have higher player agency, the players cannot "alter game reality" in the way some posters in this thread are talking about. Rather, they establish their own goals and aspirations for their PCs (including working with the group collectively to establish the appropriate backstory and setting elements to underpin those goals and aspirations), and then the GM relies on those goals and aspirations as cues for their own narration of framing and consequence.

There may also be techniques that permit the players to declare actions or make decisions pertaining to their PCs' memories. This goes together with the players' establishing goals and aspirations, to overall produce characters that have "thicker" lives, relationships, etc than is typical of much D&D play.

 

[pemerton]

A DM can always negate what the players say and do.

Really? This thread is D&D general, not AD&D 2nd ed!

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if I understand this correctly, you simply have a stricter definition of what agency is than is typical of D&D-style play. I don't agree, but fair enough.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really? This thread is D&D general, not AD&D 2nd ed!

I don't see the point you're trying to make. Or is this just snark?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really? This thread is D&D general, not AD&D 2nd ed!

And to be fair, the thread isn't Dungeon World either. We all have to have some wiggle room.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Do you not think there's a rather large practical problem in a game where the DM has authorial control so that he can present the players with an engaging world to let players willy nilly override that?

I think the word “willy-nilly” is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. As other posters have indicated, no RPGs exist that give players unlimited authorial control.

Do you mind to give me an example of a player using authorial intent to disadvantage their character that you suspect I'll have a problem with?

I understand your suspicion. Devise a test!

Just to be clear, the context was whether a player using their authorial intent to their disadvantage would be “altering the game reality”, not whether or not you would have a problem with it.

I suspect that you might not have an issue with a PC “altering the game’s reality”, even as you acknowledge that some alteration of reality took place.

As an example:

In a seafaring adventure, the PCs are at sea, running low on supplies, but are carrying a cargo of valuable muslin. They see a ship in the distance. The DM intends the ship to be a merchantman, with whom the PCs will be able to trade to replenish their supplies.

The lookout takes the spyglass to scope the ship, and rolls a natural 20 on the Perception check.

The DM duly describes a standard merchantman.

The lookout’s player pipes in “To the untrained eye, this may in fact look like a simple merchantman. But there are too many sailors on deck, and I can clearly cutlasses. These are pirates lulling us into a false sense of security!”

Would you agree that the player is altering reality even if having a merchantman turn into a pirate ship is to the characters’ disadvantage?

 

[Oofta]

...

Would you agree that the player is altering reality even if having a merchantman turn into a pirate ship is to the characters’ disadvantage?

If the player thinks a battle with pirates would be more enjoyable than it just being a merchant ship, it's not a disadvantage as far as the player is concerned.

In any case, it is certainly altering the campaign's fictional reality IMHO. EDIT: assuming the ship actually became a pirate ship in this scenario.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the word “willy-nilly” is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence. As other posters have indicated, no RPGs exist that give players unlimited authorial control.


Just to be clear, the context was whether a player using their authorial intent to their disadvantage would be “altering the game reality”, not whether or not you would have a problem with it.

I suspect that you might not have an issue with a PC “altering the game’s reality”, even as you acknowledge that some alteration of reality took place.

As an example:

In a seafaring adventure, the PCs are at sea, running low on supplies, but are carrying a cargo of valuable muslin. They see a ship in the distance. The DM intends the ship to be a merchantman, with whom the PCs will be able to trade to replenish their supplies.

The lookout takes the spyglass to scope the ship, and rolls a natural 20 on the Perception check.

The DM duly describes a standard merchantman.

The lookout’s player pipes in “To the untrained eye, this may in fact look like a simple merchantman. But there are too many sailors on deck, and I can clearly cutlasses. These are pirates lulling us into a false sense of security!”

Would you agree that the player is altering reality even if having a merchantman turn into a pirate ship is to the characters’ disadvantage?

Did the DM in that scenario decide before the game that this would be a merchant, or roll on a table with that result? If not, to me that would impact player agency.

Also, given the PCs claims that this is a pirate despite a clear description otherwise, is the DM then changing it to a pirate? Sounds to me like the PC is either delusional or lying, and neither should change the in-game reality of what the ship actually is.